


Lapis's Lunar Days

by CyclonicJet



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-12 09:37:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19944028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CyclonicJet/pseuds/CyclonicJet
Summary: This came to me so strongly and vividly that I wrote it in a day. I could spend time refining it and adding to it, but I feel that would ruin the purity of what it is. Add to much gumph and it becomes bloated and unnecessary. It's a little rough, but it's kind of perfect that way.





	Lapis's Lunar Days

Lapis knew it was cold. Caught in a deep cratered shadow, the barn was perfectly hidden from the light of this world’s star. It was dark and icy and lifeless. But she couldn’t feel it. 

Her gem could of course register the low temperature. She could of course intuit that the vacuum around her was freezing. But the deep cast shadow that coated her? Her body couldn’t sense any of its chilling embrace. That was just part of being a gem. Hot and cold were simply not a thing to be felt.

But despite this, she did feel cold. But not from any lack of latent solar energy. No, this was a frost that emanated from deep within her. An icy layer that lay crusted upon the core of her gem, its chill drifting through her, snuffing out all the happiness and joy it touched. But this feeling was nothing new. The cold had been a part of her for a long time now. A very long time. Ever since the war. Ever since she had been abandoned. Ever since the mirror.

She shuddered. The memory of her glass prison only emboldened the chill, letting the cold burn her even more painfully. She drew her arms up and wrapped them around her legs, cuddling them in her own soft embrace. She sat like this, huddled up atop the barn, as dark feelings of loneliness and misery slowly devoured away at her. It was a feeling she should have been used to by now, but she wasn’t. Not anymore. Not since…

She looked up. In the sky above hung the earth, a blue jewel cast upon a black sea. A small warmth flourished within her at the sight, chipping ever so slightly away at the sheet of ice. But it was not enough. The frosted wall was hard and thick, and even this warmth was fleeting. The pain never really faded. The suffering endured, and had indeed worsened since Steven had freed her.

She had fled back to home world, and had been imprisoned. She had been bound in a heinous and vial fusion, and then been trapped at the bottom of the ocean. Then, when at last she had dared to believe she could make a new life for herself, dared to believe she could find some small measure of peace and happiness, the diamonds had made their move. They were coming back, and it terrified her.

The idea of being locked away again, or worse. It was almost too terrible to contemplate. But deep down she knew that this was no longer what she truly feared, nor the thing she dreaded the most. She was even more scared to admit the truth, that the worst pain of all was not what they might do to her, but to her friends, her home, the whole planet. She had grown to care for them all.

She thought of Steven. Her first true friend. The crystal gems. The guardians of this world, who fought tirelessly to defend it. Her home on the meadows. With its fields of corn, bright blue skies, and quiet easy days. She thought of Peridot. Her...Lapis wasn’t sure what she was. Definitely her best friend at the least. She thought back on their first meeting, and how needlessly cruel she had been.

But that hadn’t been her. It had been the cold. That wall of ice that refused to thaw. Opening up, letting anyone in, it had only ever caused her suffering. But Peridot had slowly but surely chipped away at it, little by little, allowing her to begin moving past the mirror. Past Jasper and home world. Past everything.  Lapis reminisced on all the good times they had shared. Peridot was eccentric, but she was earnest, and full of boundless cheer when they were together. A renewed warmth flourished inside her. She mused for a good long time, a slight smile touching her lips. 

But then she remembered where she was, and how she had abandoned her home. How she had abandoned Peridot. A single tear slid down her check as the full realisation of what she had done, what she had given up, and who she had hurt, hit her like a sledgehammer.  A great crack split down the icy shell surrounding her. She moved her hand to her cheek and pulled the now frozen teardrop free. She looked at it for a second. It sparkled somewhat despite the lack of direct sunlight. She gently closed her hand around it. Lifting herself up, she spouted her wings and fluttered down into the barn itself.

* * *

Inside everything was still. The meep morps stood silent on there pedestals, awaiting an audience that would now never attend them. She walked amongst them, until she found one that was a rather bizarre collection of sea shells. Peridot had dredged up from the beach. A slight blush flecked her cheeks at the memory of being presented them. ‘It reminds me of you...you know, when you’re not here.’ Peridot had told her.

Lapis stared at it for a long while before reaching down and nestling her frozen teardrop amongst them. It sparkled there, a sapphire pearl amongst the shells. She stared around the rest of the barn. It was filled with all sorts of things, from there meep morps to farming equipment, but it had never felt more empty. The barn wasn’t frozen. It was dead.  Without her friends to liven it with laughter. Without the endless reruns of Camp Pining Hearts playing on the TV. Without Peridot...what purpose did the barn have but to serve as an ugly reminder of what she had once had, and then lost for her fear.

She turned and found herself face to face with another meep morp. A mirror embedded within a broken clock. It was cracked, but she could see her face fractured apart upon it. The cold burned at her. “No!” she said to herself. “I had to leave! I couldn't let them...I can’t go through...I’m not-” Fear gripped at her, wrapping itself around her like a coil.

“I CAN’T GO BACK IN THE MIRROR!” she screamed mutedly into the vacuum of space. She fell to her knees and tears flowed freely from her. Freezing fast, they detached and floated away, wafting off quietly around the barn. Eventually the tears dried up, but she remained sat on her knees, staring aimlessly away out the door of the barn. She could see the earth again from here. She could see its deep azure seas, its verdant green lands, and bright golden deserts.

Lapis had visited many worlds when she had served the diamonds. Ripping them apart at their behest. Earth had been no different. It was just another rock with an ocean that needed stripping. But she could see now that she had been wrong. She had never spent enough time on any of those worlds to appreciate them, and she had now spent a very long time on Earth. But only now that she had finally fled from it, did she realise how beautiful it was, and much she truly missed this tiny, once insignificant world. 

Another enormous crack fissured itself upon the ice wall. It began to fracture up and down its length. Lapis suddenly found herself back on her feet, her eyes fixed on the earth. Something nagged at her to turn to her side. She turned to her side. She was once again greeted with her reflection, a dumb blank expression stared back at her.  The cold reached out to seize her again, but it was met by something else. Something that hadn’t been there in a very very long time. Love, and with it, heat, and all the warmth that brought. No longer did the mirror instil fear in her. Where mere moments ago it had broken her, now it warmed her. Infuriated her even.

Was she going to hide while her home was stolen from her? Was she going to sacrifice her new life, her new friends, Peridot, over a mirror. She gazed into the glass and saw her reflected expression hardening. Lapis began to realise the truth. “I was never free, was I? My gem may be out of the mirror, but I’m still there aren’t I? Trapped behind that sheet of glass. Still imprisoned by it.” She looked down at her hands. She balled them into fists and scrunched her eyes. “Well no more!” she whispered soundlessly. “I choose to protect the Earth! I choose to protect my friends! I choose to finally be free of you! I choose to leave the mirror NOW!”

She smacked the mirror clock off its pedestal, launching it into the nearest wall. It collided with the wood and smashed apart into a thousand pieces, sending fragments of wood, gears, and glass flying everywhere. The ice wall shattered apart, and the warmth that had lain trapped beneath it exploded outward.

She leapt out of the barn and landed on the rim of the crater, the full light of the sun beaming down upon her. A fire had been lit within her, and it could not be extinguished. “This is my home! And I’m going to fight for it!” she yelled noiselessly to herself. “Crystal Gems! Steven!...Peridot! I’m coming back! And this time, the diamonds will learn to fear me instead!”

**Author's Note:**

> This came to me so strongly and vividly that I wrote it in a day. I could spend time refining it and adding to it, but I feel that would ruin the purity of what it is. Add to much gumph and it becomes bloated and unnecessary. It's a little rough, but it's kind of perfect that way.


End file.
